The Dewsbury & District League of Friendship have been awarded a grant of £459,818 by the Big Lottery Building Communities Fund to pay for a complete refurbishment of their building, The Howlands on School Street Dewsbury.

The Dewsbury & District League of Friendship chairman, Tom Ellis, says: “It has  taken two years of hard work by a dedicated team to achieve this. We must thank Deborah Hall our manager, Cath Longley of  Good Fundraising and Simon Cornell of Acropolis Design for their efforts in leading that team.”

The grant will be spent on a major overhaul of the School Street Building that is expected to be complete early 2017. The building works are intended to fully modernise the Victorian building to a state that will be able to accommodate community groups and a variety of uses for all the community to benefit from.

The League of Friendship will continue to support those members of the community who benefit from the wide range of activities they currently offer from the building, including arts and crafts sessions.

Tom continues: “We feel that our refurbishment is a very positive statement in the regeneration of Dewsbury and we look forward to being at the hub of the resurgence of local community involvement.”

The Big Lottery is the largest funder of community activity in the UK. It puts people in the lead to improve their lives and communities, often through small projects. It is responsible for giving out 40% of the the money raised by the National Lottery players for good causes. Every year it invests over £650 million and awards about 12,000 grants across the UK for health, education, environment and charitable purposes. Since June 2004 it has awarded over £8 billion to projects that change the lives of millions of people.